ing to sea again could have pleased him so much.

should come back for Tilly.

When the engagement became known in town, there was great wonderment about it. How did the acquaintance begin? What brought the New Yorker to Provincetown? But Tilly and her mother kept their secret to themselves, and not a soul in Provincetown ever heard a word of the red stockings, which was much better for all parties concerned.

The wedding was to be on Christmasday. But two weeks before that day, there swept over Provincetown harbor a storm the like of which had not been seen for half a century. The steeple of the old church fell; the sea cut new paths for itself here and there among the low sand-dunes, and washed away landmarks older than men could remember; great ships parted anchor, and were driven helplessly on the rocks, and the light-house swayed and rocked like a mast in the tempest. In the middle of the night the storm burst with a sudden fury. At its first roar Captain 'Lisha sprang up, and said,

"Martha, this is going to be the devil's own night, I must go up into the light, I can't leave her alone such a storm's this." From the dwelling-house to the lighthouse tower was only a short distance; the rocks were shelving, but a stout iron railing protected the path on one side. Whether Captain 'Lisha failed to grasp this rail and slipped on the icy rocks, or whether he was swept off by the violence of the gale, could only be conjectured, but in the morning he did not come back. As soon as the storm had lulled a little, Mrs. Bennet crept cautiously across the slippery path-way, and climbed the winding stair to the light. In a short time she returned, with a white horror-stricken face, and in reply to Tilly's cry of alarm, gasped :

"Your father's gone!"

After the first shock of the death was over,

to Captain 'Lisha.

"It's just what he was forever a-sayin' he'd like, to be buried in the sea, and especially to be washed overboard; if I've heard him say so once, I've heard him a hundred times, and the Lord's took him at his word, and I don't believe there's a happier spirit anywhere than 'Lisha's is, wherever 'tis he's gone to."

In the Provincetown way of thinking, Captain 'Lisha's death was no reason why Tilly's marriage should be deferred, but rather why it should be hastened. It took place, as had been planned, on Christmasday.

The next day when Tilly and her mother bade everybody good-bye, and went away with Tilly's manly, tall, kindly-eyed husband, everybody said, "What a Providence!" and I make no manner of doubt that Joe and Tilly got on quite as well together, and were quite as happy as if they had known each other better and taken more time to consider the question of marrying.

It may not be foreign to our story to add that after Joe had been married a week he recollected to send to Miss Henrietta Larned, at the Menthaven Hospital, a newspaper containing the announcement of his marriage. When Netty read it, she exclaimed in a low voice:

is pride in the song of the tanager, and vanity in that of the cat-bird. There is something distinctly human about the robin; his is the note of boyhood. I have thoughts that follow the migrating fowls northward and southward, and that go with the seabirds into the desert of the ocean, lonely and tireless as they. I sympathize with the watchful crow perched yonder on that tree, or walking about the fields. I hurry outdoors when I hear the clarion of the wild gander; his comrade in my heart sends back the call.

II.

HERE comes the cuckoo, the solitary, the joyless, enamored of the privacy of his own thoughts; when did he fly away out of this brain? The cuckoo is one of the famous birds, and is known the world over. He is mentioned in the Bible, and is discussed by Pliny and Aristotle. Jupiter himself once assumed the form of the cuckoo in order to take advantage of Juno's compassion for the

bird.

We have only a reduced and modified cuckoo in this country. Our bird is smaller, and is much more solitary and unsocial. Its color is totally different from the Old World bird, the latter being speckled, or a kind of dominick, while ours is of the finest cinnamon-brown or drab above, and bluishwhite beneath, with a gloss and richness of texture in the plumage that suggests silk. The bird has also mended its manners in this country, and no longer foists its eggs and young upon other birds, but builds a nest of its own and rears its own brood like other well-disposed birds.

The European cuckoo is evidently much more of a spring bird than ours is, much more a harbinger of the early season. He comes in April, while ours seldom appears before June, and hardly then appears. He is printed, as they say, but not published. Only the alert ones know he is here. This old English rhyme on the cuckoo does not apply this side the Atlantic:

"In April
Come he will,

In flow'ry May
He sings all day,
In leafy June

He changes his tune,
In bright July
He's ready to fly,
In August

Go he must."

Our bird must go in August too, but at no time does he sing all day. Indeed his pecu

liar guttural call has none of the character of a song. It is a solitary, hermit-like sound, as if the bird was alone in the world, and called upon the fates to witness his desolation. I have never seen two cuckoos together, and I have never heard their call answered; it goes forth into the solitudes unreclaimed. Like a true American, the bird lacks animal spirits and a genius for social intercourse. One August night I heard one calling, calling, a long time not far from my house. It was a true nightsound, more fitting then than by day.

The European cuckoo, on the other hand, seems to be a joyous, vivacious bird. Wordsworth applies to it the adjective "blithe," and says:

"I hear thee babbling to the vale
Of sunshine and of flowers.

English writers all agree that its song is animated and pleasing, and the outcome of a light heart. Thomas Hardy, whose touches always seem true to nature, describes an early summer scene in one of his books from a cluster of trees in which "the loud notes of three cuckoos were resounding through the still air." This is totally unlike our bird, which does not sing in concert, but affects remote woods, and is most frequently heard in cloudy weather. Hence the name of rain-crow that is applied to him in some parts of the country. I am more than half inclined to believe that his call does indicate rain, as it is certain that of the tree-toad does.

The cuckoo has a slender, long-drawn-out appearance on account of the great length of tail. It is seldom seen about farms or near human habitations until the June cankerworm appears, when it makes frequent visits to the orchard. It loves hairy worms, and has eaten so many of them that its gizzard is lined with hair.

The European cuckoo builds no nest, but puts its eggs out to be hatched, as does our cow blackbird, and our cuckoo is master of only the mere rudiments of nest-building. No bird in the woods builds so shabby a nest; it is the merest make-shift,—a loose scaffolding of twigs through which the eggs can be seen. The past season, I knew of a pair that built within a few feet of a country house that stood in the midst of a grove, but a heavy storm of rain and wind broke up the nest.

If the Old World cuckoo had been as silent and retiring a bird as ours is, it could never have figured so conspicuously in litera